PORT ADELAIDE coach Ken Hinkley has used the club’s Annual General Meeting to outline the painstaking review of last season and to reiterate his confidence in his side’s premiership potential in 2022 and beyond.

Port’s season ended with a disappointing loss to the Western Bulldogs in the Preliminary Final – a second straight exit at that point of the campaign.

Hinkley told members streaming the AGM that the review was done in several parts, including the usual coaches’ post-game review, a session with the playing group on the day of the Best and Fairest event, and in periods of critical self-reflection.

He said along with the final game, the entire season was dissected to help the group find improvements and set goals for 2022.

“The review should be starting with myself as the leader of the football program and I certainly started with myself in the review,” Hinkley explained.

“It’s a quite critical review when you’re looking at yourself and what your responsibilities are to this great football club.

“It starts with me and the coaches and we go through what we did through the whole season, not just that game because we look at the whole season and look at what did happen because we went into that game maybe winning seven or eight games in-a-row so we were in a really healthy position.

“We’ve made some changes with our coaching structure and the way we do things for 2022 with optimism that that will create more opportunities to improve this football club.”

Hinkley said one of the themes arising in the reviews was a need for improvement in the midfield and around the contest across the field.

He said moves had also been made to overcome the slow starts which plagued the side at times in 2021.

“Unfortunately, the review of the preliminary final was not exactly the review we’d like to have done but we still did it,” he said.

“We went through some edits of the game (with players before the Best and Fairest) to make sure we didn’t lose the opportunity because we were then going on leave for a good period of time, to make sure the players knew and understood what had gone on and where we were trying to get to in 2022, which was really important.

“And then you go spend extra time and you go through it yourself. You reflect, you look at preparation, you go through all the things that go into a game because there was no doubting that with the performance we put out in that game, we needed to reflect.

“When you look back and find everything you possibly can with the time and the mindset that you need to reflect properly… there were little bits and little tweaks we need to change in our performance.”

To improve on slow starts, Hinkley explained that alterations had been made to training.

“We do things as much as we can around training to replicate what the start of a football match looks like to the point of doing proper matchday warmups three times a week when we train,” he said.

“We train all the things we want and when we get it right, we get it really right.

“But there is no doubt there were games through 2021 where our starts were an area of concern for us.

“We spent plenty of time on that and the players have been working on it so we expect our starts will improve. Will they be perfect in all 22 games? Probably not but as a football club what we can be sure of is that our starts will be more powerful and more direct.”

Midfield growth from within

And if Friday’s intraclub is anything to go by, concerns around the club’s midfield depth may be erased with Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines and the experienced Travis Boak ably supported by a host of young guns.

Hinkley said there had long been a plan to strengthen the midfield, and 2021 might have been different had it not been for some injuries to young players like Zak Butters, Jackson Mead, Connor Rozee and Xavier Duursma.

“We (did see) the emergence of Willem Drew, we know Jackson Mead, who will play very early this year at senior level, ruptured a spleen,” he elaborated.

“There were some roadblocks in a football program as there are every year so you don’t get exactly what you want but the growth and development of our midfield was put in place three years ago.

“That wasn’t a today or a prelim final solution, that was something that’s been on our radar for a good period of time and it takes time to build some of those players.

“But this year I’m really optimistic that you’ll see a really strong and powerful Port Adelaide midfield.”

When asked about his expectations for 2022, Hinkley was forthright that his expectation was the same as that of the club and its supporters every year – to win the premiership.

He said while that was the end game, there was a need to ‘stay in the now’ and focus on getting everything right to ensure the club had the best chance of achieving its goal.

“But I’ve got a really critical job and that job is to stay focussed on today. The first thing is to make sure our pre-season is right, to make sure our training is right, to make sure every session is done at a very high level because if you get distracted by what’s out there, you’re probably not going to get there and I can’t take that chance, I can’t take that risk.

“We’ll make sure we keep our eye on the ball today, tomorrow, the next day and ensure every session is done at a level that will give us the opportunity at the end of 2022 to get what we want, and that is to win the premiership.

“If we talk in terms of ‘is your premiership window open?’ ours is at the very beginning of where it’s at and that sets the club up for some long-term success for sure.”